Science
The Power of Playing Dead – The New York Times
A study shows that pretending to be immobile — sometimes for an hour or more — helps larvae of an insects called antlions outlast hungry predators.
Such fickleness could be part of the survival strategy. If the downtime of a given antlion larva was predictable, predators could perhaps learn some patterns, Dr. Sendova-Franks said. But if there is no pattern and more food is nearby a predator might just move on, like someone with a full bag of Lays who accidentally drops a single chip into the couch.
To test this idea, the two biologists and their colleague Alan Worley simulated a hypothetical antlion community menaced by a bird. In their scenario…
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